


Breakfast Dinner

by leftofrevolution



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12450990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/pseuds/leftofrevolution
Summary: It said a lot about him that the only bridge he hadn’t yet managed to burn was one he’d built by accident.





	Breakfast Dinner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/gifts).



It was very, very late at night when Kisame finally made it to their usual meeting place, the shoreline of a small bay several kilometers to the south of Mist Village. He wasn’t so much as breathing hard, because as far as Obito could tell Kisame’s stamina was virtually limitless, but he had been moving so quickly that he skidded upon arriving at the beach, his feet sliding over three meters in the sand before he found his footing.

Kisame hadn’t drawn any weapons yet, but it was easy to see the tension in his chakra, barely suppressed. Easier still to see it in Kisame’s posture, even in faint illumination provided by the haziness of the moon’s light trying to break through the late-evening haze; the Mist-nin’s right hand was twitching near the hilt of Samehada, and his eyes—reflective like a cat’s—were darting around like he expected an ambush.

Obito didn’t give him time to get any more agitated; Kisame’s chakra when given time to build was explosive enough to attract attention all the way back in Mist Village. From his perch on top of a nearby rock outcropping behind some ferns, he called out, “Kisame.”

Kisame looked over, his posture relaxing and his chakra receding back beneath his skin. “Mizukage-sama,” Kisame said with his usual hint of irony. They looked at each other for a long moment—or rather, Obito looked at Kisame and Kisame squinted over at him, trying to make him out through the fern leaves—before Kisame snorted and looked back towards the water. “So what’s the emergency?”

Even now, looking at the only bridge he had not yet managed to burn to ashes—one he’d only ever built out of stupid, selfish reasons, that wasn’t based on lies only because Kisame had a unique sense for bullshit—the words caught in Obito’s throat. But the weight of the bundle on his back could not be ignored, and he was one-hundred percent out of options. “I… need your help.”

Something in his voice must have sounded odd, because Kisame turned back towards him sharply. “What’s happened?”

It had been over a year, since someone had expressed actual concern. Zetsu and Madara might have occasionally parroted the right words, but Madara’s chakra had always resounded with indifference, and Zetsu… Zetsu’s chakra was even less human than the Kyuubi’s, and commensurately equally impossible to read. Kisame, in contrast, sounded angry, but his chakra pulsed protectively, again flickering out of Kisame’s control before he forced it down.

It was a feeble, desperate grasp for that—for a hope that someone, _anyone_ still cared, even if it was someone he’d only met a few months ago, even if he didn’t deserve it—that Obito found himself blurting out, “I’m an idiot. I’m a total, complete, gullible idiot, and a selfish bastard, and I’ve ruined _everything_ and I’ve killed so many people, I’ve killed- I’ve killed my teacher, and his wife, and I-“ to his horror, he couldn’t even muffle his first sob because his stupid mask was in the way, and he couldn’t stop _shaking_ , great, he was pathetic on top of everything else-

“… Teacher?” After a moment, Kisame’s expression shifted from mild stupefaction to the wide eyes of one having a life-shattering revelation. “And here I was thinking you were just short. You- you’re just a kid.”

Such a statement would have stung, a year or a lifetime ago, for all that it was true. He couldn’t even feel it now through his horror and grief, but that didn’t do much to suppress old instincts, honed from a lifetime of being on the same team as Baka-shi. “Shut up!”

His voice cracked on the second word—not really helping to refute Kisame’s conclusions—and of _course_ it was that, and not all of the running around earlier, that finally woke up Naruto. Who stirred, and—against all Obito’s fervent wishes—started to bawl.

Great. Now there were _two_ of them crying, and ten meters away still stood Kisame, whose eyebrows were rising higher and higher towards his hairline with every passing second. “... Are you actually the Fourth?”

It was that—combined with the crying, combined with the fact that Obito hadn’t sleep more than a couple of hours a night for nearly two weeks, combined with _everything else_ that had been his life and he had made of his life since Kannabi Bridge—that found him finally whipping off his mask, stepping out of the ferns, and hissing, “Should I melt you brain so you can find out?” Because threatening his only remaining ally with brain melting was _so freaking smart_ , especially considering it just made Naruto cry _louder_ , which… gods, he was so tired. He sat down as heavily as he dared, his Sharingan fading almost as quickly as it had appeared. It didn’t stop his eye hurting. He only faintly heard Kisame as he murmured, “Never mind,” and walked up to crouch beside Obito. “Whose kid?”

“My teacher’s,” Obito whispered, and then he didn’t do anything for a while.

\--*--

He woke up on a couch, to the smell of sausage cooking. It was so comfortable and familiar it took him a few seconds to remember that his father had been dead for three years. It took another couple of seconds on top of that to panic at the lack of weight on his back, and he shoved himself to his feet before he’d completely found his bearings, staggering slightly before catching himself on the coffee table.

When his head finally stopped swimming, he realized he was facing over the back of the couch at Kisame, who was standing next to a stove and staring at him bemusedly with a pair of chopsticks in his right hand. “So you’re finally up.”

He didn’t bother acknowledging the obvious inanity. “Where is-”

Kisame gestured with the chopsticks to the kitchen table, on top of which was a basket where within Obito could just make out a tuft of bright blond hair beneath a small pile of blankets.

Obito briefly considered feeling stupid for his momentary panic before deciding against it. In the grand scheme of things, he had much bigger things to feel foolish about than the well-being of his teacher’s infant son. “Where are we? … And how long was I out?”

“My family ancestral compound, outside of the village. And…” Kisame glanced at the clock over the stove, which read just past five o’clock. Seeing as there was light coming from outside, Obito could only guess it was evening instead of morning, this time of year. “Fourteen hours.”

Which kind of begged the question of why Kisame was making breakfast instead of dinner, but instead Obito felt himself seized with panic again. “Oh sh- where’s my bag?”

Kisame pointed silently with the chopsticks again, though this time just about a meter to Obito’s right next to the side of the couch. Obito didn’t bother thanking him, just dove immediately for the bag and started digging through it. Damn it, where was-

“I’ve already fed him. Six times since you fell asleep, last time ten minutes ago.”

“What about-”

“I’ve also changed his diaper five times. Burped him too. He’s fine. Easy kid. I’m more worried about you. Mizukage-sama.”

Obito sat down carefully on the edge of the coffee table and rubbed at his eye. “I’m fine.”

“You hypnotized a chuunin to slap me awake in the barracks at two-forty in the morning nine days before our next scheduled meeting, then when I showed up you had a verbal meltdown, started crying, threatened me, and collapsed.” Kisame tilted the cooking sausage next to an omelet and a small bowl of rice on a plate, taking two steps closer to the couch before leaning over the back and handing the plate and the chopsticks to Obito.

Obito had to stare at it for a second before he could remember what to do with his hands. He thought for two seconds about making a half-hearted protest about not being hungry, except that his hands were still shaking and he couldn’t blame it anymore on lack of sleep. He didn’t technically need to eat anymore, but he still needed to get energy from somewhere, and he hadn’t had a lot of places to source from over the past couple of weeks.

It was around half a sausage link and a bite of the omelet (onions and dashi, by the kami he had never appreciated the crunch of onions so much as now) that Obito replied, “Well, I did say I needed your help, didn’t I?”

He had tried for nonchalant, but he must have failed pretty hard because Kisame just raised one eyebrow, looking distinctly unimpressed. He hadn’t bothered straightening from his lean over the back of the couch. “You said that when we first met, too. But you haven’t told me what you want. And it seems to me that the situation must’ve changed quite a bit.”

Obito took the time to some more eggs into his mouth, but this time they were oddly hard to swallow. “… Yeah.” He smiled, and he was aware even as he forced it how fake it must’ve looked. He could already feel it twisting on his face. “You remember that grand plan I kept on talking about? To create a world of truth? Turns out that was a crock of shit.”

Kisame didn’t so much as blink. “Thought that might be it.”

Obito choked on his eggs. For a long moment, he could only stare at Kisame. “You-”

“Don’t get indignant on me. I believed it. Because you did. You’re a persuasive guy, Mizukage-sama.” Kisame’s mouth quirked. The smile didn’t look any more real on Kisame than it had felt on Obito. “Should’ve known you were young. Who else but a brat and an idiot like me could believe that the world would ever change?” Kisame’s tone remained conversational, like he was talking about the weather, but a stealth specialist he was not; his chakra was, as always, not terribly well restrained, but neither was it lashing out like it had at the beach. Instead, it was… Obito couldn’t think of a better word than _sad_.

It was stupid, to ever think things would be fair. Any hope of that had died in Obito with Rin.

But watching Minato-sensei and Kushina die… it had also been a reminder that the unfairness of the world was an ongoing, relentless tragedy, for _everyone_ , not just him. That he’d become the sort of person that would add to that tragedy as long as it benefitted him, the exact sort of person that Rin would _never_ forgive, not ever.

He’s caused this pain, too, hadn’t he. He’d breathed life into Kisame’s barely-realized dream of a world of truth, only to reveal it to be built on sand.

And he was eating the guy’s omelet and sitting in his house as he did it. Fuck, he was an asshole.

What the hell was he doing here?

It occurred to Obito—over half a day too late to matter—that he hadn’t thought this entirely through. Or at all, really, beyond retreating to the only remaining safe hole in the ground he had remaining to him. He didn’t deserve to be here, sitting on Kisame’s coffee table and eating his food. He didn’t really deserve _anything_. He was _trash_. Worse than.

“That’s quite a face journey you’re going on there, Mizukage-sama.” Obito looked up from the remnants of his rice (because despite everything it _did_ taste delicious) back at Kisame, who just raised an eyebrow at him. “No wonder you wear a mask all the time, if you’re that bad at hiding your feelings.” Kisame’s expression was solemn, but somehow the good humor was already back in his voice. Resilient to disappointment, in a way Obito had never quite managed.

Obito barely resisted the urge to avert his gaze back to his rice. His owed that much to Kisame, at least. “I- I’m sorry.” There were people he owed the apology to more, but they weren’t here, were they.

Kisame turned back to the counter and started putting together another plate of food. “Yeah, I know. Face journey, remember?” He turned back around towards Obito, but instead of starting in on the eggs and sausage himself, he just leaned over the back of the couch again and held the plate out to Obito. “Come on, you still look like you haven’t eaten in a month.”

They weren’t here, forgiving him without saying a word.

\--*--

“My name is Uchiha Obito.”

It was the most difficult confession of Obito’s life. It had taken a year and the entire lifespan of his second plate of breakfast-dinner for him to build up to it. However, while Obito knew Kisame didn’t have to blink as often as most people, the sheer lack of surprise on the Mist-nin’s face was a bit… anticlimactic. Uchiha Obito may not have been famous, but he _had_ been the Fourth Hokage’s student. There should have been _something_. Unless- well fuck. “You already knew!”

Kisame shrugged around a mouthful of his own breakfast-dinner (crab cakes and eggs for him, not a sausage in sight), taking a few seconds to chew and swallow before saying, “Well, when you put together his coloring, his age, the Kyuubi’s rampage through Konoha about two weeks back, the reported deaths of the Yellow Flash and the extremely pregnant Red-Hot Habanero, and the fresh seal on the kid’s stomach that marks him as a bijuu, the kid is pretty obviously Namikaze Minato’s and Uzumaki Kushina’s. And you said it was your teacher’s kid, and Uchiha Obito was reported dead a little over a year ago at the Kannabi Bridge but his body was never recovered. Your body has suffered extreme trauma on the right side, and you have the Sharingan, but only have your right eye, while Hatake Kakashi returned from the mission where Uchiha Obito died with a Sharingan transplant in his left eye. You also look about the right age, when you’re not scowling, at least.”

Kisame just shrugged at Obito’s responding gape. “I’m in Intelligence, remember? I may be an idiot, but I’m not _blind_ , Mizukage-sama.”

Even hearing it laid out so clearly, Obito was having a difficult time processing the simple fact that Kisame _knew who he was_. Kisame had _known_ who he was for _fourteen hours_ (closer to fifteen, now). He had known when Obito was unconscious and vulnerable, and he had carried Obito back to his house and let him sleep on his couch and fed and cleaned Naruto, and even once Obito had told him that the only reason they had ever spoken was a lie, that even if he hadn’t gotten away with completely disguising his identity Obito had been stringing him along the entire time they had known each other… Kisame hadn’t attacked him or told him to leave, even before Obito apologized. Shit, Kisame had _turned his back on him_ , even now was sitting not two meters from him, as far as Obito could tell armed with nothing more dangerous with a pair of lacquered chopsticks, and-

Naruto was crying.

Obito stood up, near-instinctive by this point, but he stumbled slightly on his first step, his muscles no longer totally exhausted but having just now decided to cramp after over half a day of inactivity.

Kisame, who Obito had to walk by to get to Naruto, just shoved him lightly back onto the couch. “Relax. You’ve been on baby duty for two weeks, I can handle it for a while."

Obito should have wanted to protest. Naruto was his responsibility now, wasn’t he? Since Obito had killed his parents? Except… it seemed like Kisame _had_ taken pretty good care of Naruto while he’d been asleep, and it felt okay to sit back onto the couch and watch Kisame pick up Naruto, only then turning on the stove to heat up a bottle of formula, Naruto balanced securely in the crook of Kisame’s left arm. Naruto was absolutely dwarfed by Kisame’s size, but he did not seem perturbed by this, quieting with a happy baby burble as soon as Kisame took him from the basket.

It had taken over a week before Naruto had been similarly comforted by Obito’s hold.

In fact, watching Kisame putter around the kitchen, testing the temperature of the formula on his wrist before holding it to Naruto’s mouth, Kisame seemed a lot more confident—and competent—at this whole baby thing after less than a day than Obito was after two weeks. And like, Obito had maybe become a little cocky in his own skills, but he _had_ gone from a Sharingan-less chuunin, to being able to mind-control the Mizukage, to going toe-to-toe with the Hokage, all in just a year. And he wasn’t proud of that, he _wasn’t_ (or at least he shouldn’t be), but the point was that when he had motivation, he was great at learning stuff. So it wasn’t completely hubris when he asked Kisame, “Have you taken care of babies before?”

Kisame shrugged, Naruto still happily sucking away at his bottle. “One of my sisters had kids.” He raised an eyebrow at Obito. “I thought you would’ve done your research on me before approaching me.”

“… I knew your clan was killed in the night when you were nine years old. Lightning strike force.” At least so the official records went, and Yagura hadn’t had much to say on the subject. “You were on an Academy training trip, so you survived. No one else did. But I didn’t... really look much deeper than that.” It had seemed enough that Kisame had no family, both of his genin teammates were dead, and he had killed his teacher without much in the way of regret to show for it.

Kisame’s grin was even sharper than usual. “We were an obvious target. Less than twenty of us, all living together in a compound outside the protection of the village walls. The Hoshigaki Clan was a hardy bunch, but not a single Sensor among us. No one even saw it coming.” Naruto had emptied his bottle, so Kisame put it down and laid a cloth over his shoulder before holding Naruto up to it, supporting him with his left hand while patting him lightly on the back with his right.

Nothing could really distract from how pointy Kisame’s teeth were, but somehow they became less alarming when Naruto burped, then yawned, and Kisame looked down at him, his grin softening into a smile barely quirking the corner of his mouth.

But still, Kisame was only temporarily distracted, and it was only a moment later that he asked, “If you didn’t know I could handle kids, why’d you come?”

It was kind of stupid, how Obito’s instinct was still to lie. Except Kisame had seen through him even when he’d been wearing a mask, and apparently he still wore his feelings on his face just as much as he had since Baka-shi had last accused him of being a crybaby, so that impulse was worse than pointless. And Kisame already knew his name, didn’t he? Everything after that was basically just dressing. “Didn’t really have any other options. Betrayed my village when I sicced the Kyuubi on it and got their Hokage killed. Betrayed everyone I was working with when I decided I didn’t want to go with the stupid plan anymore.

“You are the only person I know who I thought might not hate me. Even though you should.”

“Probably,” Kisame agreed. “What you tried to do to me I’d normally find unforgiveable. But you’re a kid, and you apologized. Also, just because it’s one of the reasons you thought I’d be an easy mark doesn’t make it any less true that I don’t really have anyone to talk to, besides you.”

“I’m not a kid,” Obito muttered into his mug of tea (because Kisame had made them both tea before eating himself. Of course). “Stop saying that. I’m only two years younger than you.” Somehow it seemed important to establish this, and he didn’t know how to address the fact that, yeah, he’d targeted Kisame because the Mist-nin had been so isolated, and it had only been later that it occurred to Obito that Kisame was likeable, easy to talk to in a way that reminded Obito bizarrely of Rin.

It hadn’t seemed important at the time; Obito had sought out those who were strong, who he could persuade to join in the plan (people who were seeking purpose in life, who were vulnerable, and how laughable was it that Obito was only now seeing the parallels between them and himself). Whether or not they were pleasant to be around had been completely irrelevant, for all that he had sought out Kisame’s company in a way he hadn’t for Konan, Nagato, Sasori, or Kakuzu.

(All of whom he had abandoned to the whims and machinations of Zetsu. He should really send Nagato at least a note.)

Kisame’s imperious smirk was somewhat undermined by the babbling sounds Naruto was making into his shirt. “Sure. But where are you going from here?”

“Somewhere safe.” That, at least, he had thought out at least a little bit. “Somewhere I can raise Naruto, away from all of this ninja bullshit.” It was remarkably easy, looking at Naruto in Kisame’s arms, to follow that up with, “You should come with us.”

“What, stop being a ninja to raise a kid with a guy I barely know?” Kisame’s tone was mocking, but Obito was a Sensor even if Kisame wasn’t, and he saw the way Kisame’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly around Naruto when Obito made his offer.

“Yeah.” Already, Obito was warming up to this. He wasn’t much of a long-term strategy guy, but he could plan on the fly with the best of them. “I’ve still got control of Yagura. I could have him send you on a long-term reconnaissance mission, very hush-hush, reporting only to him. You can’t be a missing-nin if you’re doing a job for the Mizukage. Konoha thinks I’m dead, and as far as they’re concerned, Naruto vanished into thin air.” Zetsu… Obito knew how to hide from Zetsu, at least at this distance. Zetsu was a problem for a future time. “We could disappear. We could live however we wanted.”

He could see Kisame wavering, in the way his eyes flickered between Obito and Naruto. And that was all the opening Obito needed. “But we don’t have to disappear forever. We’re young, we’re powerful, and Naruto will be powerful too, if we teach him how to take care of himself. And that means we have both the time and the means to figure out how to make a world of truth happen for real.”

Kisame stilled. He was very, very careful when he put Naruto back in the basket, but his hands were white-knuckled where he gripped the table, his face tight as he stared at Obito. “Mizukage-sama. _Stop trying to manipulate me._ We both know that such a world is-”

“I’m sick of being a ninja.” His voice broke halfway through the sentence, and he was pretty sure it was that more than anything else that made Kisame stop and listen, his hands loosening on the table edge. “We engage in wars just as pointless and bloody as samurai, but at least _they_ can trust each other. We kill our own comrades, putting the village above anything else. And we get nothing back in return. I’m sick of it, okay? I cared about my friends, and I sacrificed _everything_ for them, but I still had to watch the person I loved most in the world die for the village. My teammate’s dad _killed_ himself because just once in his life, he prioritized his bonds with his team over his duty, and the village couldn’t forgive him for it.

“The plan I pitched to you was stupid, but the _reasons_ behind it weren’t. The village is shit. There isn’t a single shinobi village that has any ideals behind it worth upholding, so there’s nothing of value in a village besides the people who live in it, yet somehow the village is more important than them? What the hell is that?

“I don’t know how to tear that down. Not yet.” He had been such a selfish brat, when he had agreed to Madara and Zetsu’s plan. What they’d wanted was nothing good. Same for him, since he could now admit to himself that what he had wanted was not truth at all; even in a world where Rin was wonderfully, miraculously alive would she ever smile upon him again, after all he had done.

But he couldn’t wallow in that. He was no longer living for just himself. It was time he grew up. “But I will. And I want you there. With me.”

It was a long five seconds before Kisame exhaled. His grin was rueful, but there was nothing but cheer in his voice when he finally replied, “Fuck it. When do we leave?”

**Author's Note:**

> So while I posted the last chapter of a _Naruto_ fic in 2014, the last time I actually wrote _Naruto_ for real was in 2007, so it's been a while.
> 
> This was written entirely due to blackkat's love for Kisame/Obito and a discussion on their tumblr some months back about how cute it would be if Obito had run away with Naruto and raised him with Kisame. I am bad at real pairing fic, so this is less romance and more two teenagers been young and traumatized and over their heads but they're figuring it out, damn it.
> 
> It's been a while since I followed _Naruto_ canon, so apologies for any timeline inaccuracies (or just getting characters' personalities wrong).


End file.
